Christopher Chase-Dunn

Cross-National Evidence of the Effects of Foreign Investment and Aid on Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of Findings and a Reanalysis.

As an outgrowth of dependency theories of national development, there have been a large number of cross-national empirical studies of the effects of foreign investment and aid on economic growth and inequality. This paper reviews these studies in order to discover what can be concluded about these relationships. Our strategy is as follows: First, we discuss the conceptualization of the four main variables at issue. Second, we discuss the differences in the research designs and measuments in the studies. Third, we compare their results and explain contradictory and inconsistent findings. Fourth, we present some new analyses based on this review. We conclude: (1) The effect of direct foreign investment and aid has been to increase economic inequality within countries. (2) Flows of direct foreing investment and aid have had a short-term effect of increasing the relative rate of economic growth of countries. (3) Stocks of direct foreign investment and aid have had the cumulative, long-term effect of decreasing the relative rate of economic growth of countries. (4) This relationship has been conditional on the level of development of countries. The stocks of foreign investment and aid have had negative effects in both richer and poorer developing countries, but the effect is much stronger within the richer than the poorer ones. (5) These relationships hold independently of geographical area.

The Effects of International Economic Dependence on Development and Inequality: A Cross-National Study

The research reported in this paper studies the effects of a nations dependent position in the world economy on its economic development and income inequality. Two kinds of international economic dependence are studied: investment dependence, the penetration of a country by foreign capital and debt dependence, the dependence of a government on foreign credit. The dependent variables studied include three measuresofaggregate economic development: gross national product per capita, kilowatt hours of electricity consumed and the percentage of the male labor force not employed in agriculture. In addition, two control variables are included in the analysis: domestic capital formation and the extent to which the national economy is specialized in mining. The research design employed is panel regression analysis, which utilizes data at two points in time (1950 and 1970). The results indicate that both types of international economic dependence have overall negative effects on aggregate economic development. A cross-sectional estimate of the dependence effects on income inequality produces positive, though not statistically significant effects. It is concluded that dependency theories predict the effects of inputs from advanced nations to less-developed ones better than neo-classical international economic theories or sociological modernization theories.

Trade globalization since 1795 : Waves of integration in the world-system

The term globalization as used by social scientists and in popular discourse has many meanings. We contend that it is important to distinguish between globalization as a contemporary political ideology and what we call structural globalization - the increasing worldwide density of large-scale interaction networks relative to the density of smaller networks. We study one type of economic globalization over the past two centuries: the trajectory of international trade as a proportion of global production. Is trade globalization a recent phenomenon, a long-term upward trend, or a cyclical process? Using an improved measure of trade globalization, we find that there have been three waves since 1795. We discuss the possible causes of these pulsations of global integration and their implications for the early decades of the twenty-first century

Interstate System and Capitalist World-EconomyOne Logic or Two?

This essay argues that capitalism is best conceived as a peculiar combination of economic and political processes which operate at the level of the world economy as a whole. Thus the interstate system is the political side of capitalism, not an analytically autonomous system, and its survival is dependent on the operation of the institutions which are associated with the capital-accumulation process. The argument for this approach is made as a prelude to further discussion, theoretical clarity, and empirical research. The point of this project is to distinguish between theories which conceptualize the modern world in terms of economic and political subsystems and those which regard capitalism as a system in which political and economic processes can be understood to have a single, integrated logic.

Toward a Structural Perspective on the World-System:

RECENT work on development and modernization has turned away from the assumption of independently evolving national societies. There is instead a growing emphasis on interdependence between nations. Discussion of the development gap between &dquo;advanced&dquo; and &dquo;underdeveloped&dquo; areas has been recast in terms of the power relationships between them, and work on the emergence of &dquo;interdependence&dquo; between nations has focused on the recent growth of multinational corporations and the rates of exchange across national boundaries.1 None of these analyses, however, has systematically elaborated the structural characteristics of the larger system within which national societies operate. This paper will attempt to isolate the basic structural elements that make up the world-system and

Bronze Age World System Cycles [and Comments and Reply]

This essay explores the geographical extent of the world system and dates its cyclical ups and downs during the Bronze Age and, in a preliminary way, the early Iron Age. The scope of these twin tasks is exceptionally wide and deep: wide in exploring a single world system that encompasses much of Afro-Eurasia, deep in identifying systemwide conomic and political cycles since more than 5,000 years ago.

City systems and world-systems:Four millennia of city growth and decline

This is a study of the growth of cities in four regions over the past 4,000 years. The authors discuss changes in the relationship between political/military power, economic power, and city systems with special attention to the rise of European hegemony and the subsequent rise of East Asian world cities. They compare East Asian urban growth with the original heartland of cities in West Asia and North Africa, as well as Europe and the subcontinent of South Asia. This reveals the trajectories of city growth and decline and the relative importance of the different regions over time. And they re-examine the hypothesis of synchronicities of city growth and decline across distant regions as the Afro-Eurasian world system became more and more integrated.

The world-systems perspective and archaeology: Forward into the past

This article reviews previous attempts to extend world-system theory from the modern era to prehistoric and archaeological settings. It summarizes major debates among scholars from several disciplines who are comparing the modern world-system with earlier world-systems. Special attention centers on the problems of conceptualizing world-systems, the spatial bounding of world-systems, and understandings of systemic logics.

World-state formation: historical processes and emergent necessity

Abstract Recent studies of processes operating in the modern world system imply that the continued existence of the interstate system—the system of multiple, competing, and unequally powerful states—may be a luxury which humanity cannot afford. Because of the destructiveness of modern weaponry the continuation of the legitimacy of warfare as a method for resolving disputes is incompatible with the survival of our world civilization and perhaps also with the survival of life on Earth. This paper examines theories which purport to explain the longevity and structural basis of the contemporary interstate system. These have implications for the possibility of global state formation. Comparative research shows that the modern interstate system is unusually long-lived. I argue that the emergence of capitalist commodity production accounts for the structural resistance of the contemporary interstate system to transformation into a ‘universal empire’. The processes of hegemonic rise and fall of states which operate within the modern system differ significantly from earlier world systems in which capitalist commodity production was less fully institutionalized. Modern hegemonic core states support the multicentric political structure of the interstate system, while dominant states in earlier systems tried to create system-wide imperium. This analysis of the relationship between the logic of accumulation and processes of political centralization has implications for the possibilities of developing a world polity which can prevent the usage of weapons of mass destruction.

The Trajectory of the United States in the World-System: A Quantitative Reflection

Using improved estimates of world and country GDPs, population, and GDP per capita published by Angus Maddison (2001), we report findings of a quantitative study of the trajectory of the United States in world historical perspective. We compare the U.S. economic hegemony of the twentieth century with the seventeenth-century Dutch hegemony and the British hegemony of the nineteenth century. We also track the trajectories of challengers and discuss the future of hegemonic rivalry and global governance. Our findings support the existence of a sequence of hegemonic rises and declines. Despite a recent plateau in the decline of U.S. economic hegemony, we contend that the United States will continue to decline.